Vieux Farka Touré: Out of the Shadows

Vieux Farka
Touré capos his
Godin Summit CT
and hits a joyous
chord during a
gig in Sydney,
Australia. Photo
by Daniel Boud

Understanding a genre’s lineage helps you connect dots over time
to understand how music interconnects and evolves. Nothing
illustrates this better than the blues, whose evolution can be traced
through many different generations and geographic regions. You can
see the progression from America, beginning with the earthy Delta
style of players such as Charley Patton and Robert Johnson, and then
Muddy Waters helped morph it into a gritty, urban blues, and before
long the genre had hopped over the Atlantic to the UK and led to
the high-energy solos of Eric Clapton and the dirty swagger of the
Rolling Stones. The cycle will keep going in perpetuity—especially
with the ease of global information transfer that technology affords
today—and all of it will continue to inform modern blues and blues-rock.
The Secret, the latest release from Malian guitarist Vieux Farka
Touré, is a great example of this.

Although we all know the blues blossomed as a cathartic
American art form fed by the blood-and-sweat-soaked soil of slavery,
poverty, and prejudice, if you go back before Johnson’s supposed
meeting at the crossroads and Patton’s siring of the Delta blues, you
logically end up in Africa—the
homeland of the mothers,
fathers, and grandparents of the
genre’s founders. And naturally,
the cycle of musical evolution
goes back in time to the dawn
of humankind.

As Darwin found on the
Galápagos Islands, though,
the same species will evolve
differently under contrasting
conditions. And for players
interested in how this phenomenon
has played out musically
in modern times, Vieux Farka
Touré’s father, the late Ali Farka
Touré, has proven a fascinating
and enjoyable study. Ali’s first
appearance on the world music
scene came with his 1976 album
Ali Touré Farka, and soon after
his reputation as an “African
John Lee Hooker” spread
throughout the continent. Prior
to succumbing to bone cancer
in 2006, Ali’s influence had
spread into the mainstream due
to his collaborations with slide
wizard Ry Cooder, Taj Mahal,
and Corey Harris.

Since attending a Dave Matthews Band concert as a teenager, Jason has been into all things guitar. An Iowa native, Jason has degrees in Music Business from Minnesota State-Mankato and Jazz Pedagogy from the University of Northern Iowa. Since then, he has spent time doing everything from promotion at an indie music label to organizing guitar workshops all over the country. Currently, Jason lives with his wife, son, and daughter in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

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